Rocket Crafters fires engine with eye toward Intrepid launcher

Rocket Crafters is testing hybrid rocket motors in an industrial area of Cocoa.

Malcolm Denemark, FLORIDA TODAY

A 10-second burst of flame from an engine mounted on a trailer outside a nondescript Cocoa industrial building previewed a technology backers say could soon power a revolutionary new rocket.

The brief test on Monday afternoon demonstrated startup Rocket Crafters’ patented hybrid rocket fuel, which is made with a 3-D printer.

Rocket Crafters is designing the Intrepid rocket for launches of small satellites. At a Cocoa ...more

Rocket Crafters is designing the Intrepid rocket for launches of small satellites. At a Cocoa industrial facility on Monday, the company test-fired a prototype hybrid rocket engine, shown here in a screen grab from a GoPro camera recording the 10-second test.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

As soon as 2020, the now 15-person company hopes to launch the Intrepid rocket from Cape Canaveral, entering the growing market for dedicated launches of small satellites.

“We are not trying to evolve technology, we’re trying to revolutionize it,” said CEO Sid Gutierrez, a former space shuttle pilot and commander. “We want to turn everything upside down and really change the way we access space.”

The company’s Cidco Road facility is notable for what is not there, Gutierrez said.

Unlike a more typical rocket engine site, there are no signs warning of explosive materials, no use of super-cold or toxic propellants, and no engines equipped with turbo pumps.

Instead, the rocket fuel consisted of plastic tubes fashioned from the same base materials as Legos, measuring two feet long and weighing about five pounds, that were stacked on shelves and safe to touch.

Combined with nitrous oxide — commonly known as “laughing gas” — the small-scale test engine on Monday generated about 200 pounds of thrust firing at half-power.

It was one of more than 20 such firings over the past year at the facility Cocoa officials rezoned to allow the tests, which were deemed safe to the surrounding people and environment.

“We’re not the noisiest neighbor in the area,” joked Robert Fabian, senior vice president of the propulsion division.

But Rocket Crafters believes it has found a low-cost solution providing a smooth, consistent burn: 3-D printed cylinders of fuel formed in ridged and beaded layers.

Rocket Crafters did not disclose how much investment it has received to date, or what it will need to develop the expendable Intrepid rocket, but said it has spent less than $1 million over the past year to produce its small prototypes.

“We have gotten to the point we’re at now at incredibly low cost,” said Fabian. “Having a working test prototype of a rocket engine for under $1 million is unheard of.”

Rocket Crafters is testing hybrid rocket motors in an industrial area of Cocoa.

Malcolm Denemark, FLORIDA TODAY

The company won a $650,000 contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help develop a larger 5,000-pound thrust engine, after a losing bid for DARPA’s Experimental Spaceplane program.

Fabian said Rocket Crafters had enough interested potential customers to fill a first year of launches, including rides on several planned test missions.

Ronald Jones, co-founder and chief technologist of Rocket Crafters, stands by a cylinder of 3-D ...more

Ronald Jones, co-founder and chief technologist of Rocket Crafters, stands by a cylinder of 3-D printed hybrid rocket fuel now being tested at an industrial facility in Cocoa. Rocket Crafters is designing the Intrepid rocket for launches of small satellites.

MALCOLM DENEMARK/FLORIDA TODAY

Once operational, the Intrepid rocket could launch as often as every week from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California or a third site to be determined, rolling in and out to the launch site on a semitrailer.

The Intrepid will be designed to lift nearly 1,000 pounds of payload into low Earth orbit with a target price of $9 million per launch. Two more powerful versions of the rocket are on the drawing board.

Even launching weekly, Fabian said, Rocket Crafters might still only capture 20 percent of the projected market for small satellite launches, leaving room for multiple players.

But Rocket Crafters is one of several dozen companies developing rockets for that market — whose projections may prove optimistic — and realistically only a small number will succeed.

Others closer to operations include Rocket Lab, which is approaching its first commercial launch from New Zealand, the air-launched Virgin Orbit and Vector Space.

“The demand is huge,” said Fabian. “The real issue here is supply. We aim to meet that supply with an inexpensive and safe rocket engine.”

Contact Dean at 321-242-3668 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FlameTrench.

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